An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Alternative Black Voice of the ‘60’s Died Because he Evolved

Note:Adapted
from a post on February 21, 2012.

Malcolm
Little was born on May19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska to a
local leader of Marcus Garvey’s
Universal Negro Improvement Association and a very light skinned
mother.The family was harassed for his
father’s involvements, forced to move from Omaha, and threatened in their new
home in Lansing, Michigan.Malcolm’s father’s death after being run
over by a street car may have been the result of an attack by the racist
Michigan Black Legion.

Without his father,
Malcolm drifted into crime and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for burglary
and gun charges in Massachusetts in
1946.While serving time he fell under
the influence of another inmate who encouraged him to improve himself through
reading and who introduced him to the teaching of another ex-con Elijah Muhammad.

After being released
from prison in 1952 he met the leader of The
Nation of Islam in Chicago,
forsook his “slave name,” and became Malcolm
X.He rose rapidly in the
organization and soon became Elijah Muhammad’s most trusted lieutenant and
public spokesperson.

The Nation of Islam
taught a brand of African American Nationalism
and separation from the “White Devils” who oppressed them.Under Malcolm’s influence the Nation of Islam
grew from 500 to more than 25,000 members.He scored a great coup when he successfully recruited the Heavy Weight Champion of the World Cassius
Clay and dubbed him Muhammad
Ali.

During the Civil Rights era he was harshly
critical of the Rev. Martin Luther King,
Jr. and other leaders for both seeking integration and for their nonviolent
tactics.

After being publicly
censured by Elijah Muhammad for saying that the assassination of John F. Kennedy amounted to “the
chickens coming home to roost,” Malcolm broke with the Nation ofIslam.

He founded his own
Muslim organization, the Muslim Mosque and
the Organization of African-American
Unity as a secular and political organization.As he worked on The Autobiography of Malcolm X
with Alex Haley, he began to
advocate the “careful use of the ballot” as a means of African American
advancement.

He was also approached
by orthodox Sunni Muslims and urged
to study the Koran and repudiate the
many un-Islamic innovations of the Nation of Islam.He did convert and undertook the required
pilgrimage to Mecca.While there he observed how believers of
all races were respected, welcomed and treated equally.He came to believe the Islam could be the
means by which racial reconciliation could take place.

This new outlook, and
the fact that Malcolm was both attracting his followers and overshadowing him in
public, made him a marked man with Elijah Muhammad.

On February 21, 1965 Malcolm X was cut down in a hail of
gunfire by three assailants loyal to Elijah Muhammad.He had just risen to speak
to a crowd of about 400 at a meeting of The Organization of African American
Unityat theAudubon Ballroom in New
York City.

Although top leadership
in the Nation was never directly connected to the assassination, three members
were convicted in the shooting.Alex
Haley finished the Autobiography and it was published to wide acclaim later in
the year.

Denzel Washington played him in a critically acclaimed bio-pic decades later.